Ancient History, Greek and Roman through Late Antiquity Commons^™

Justice As Self-Transmitting Power And Just Acts In Republic 4, Andrew Payne

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

In his influential paper “A Fallacy in Plato’s Republic,” David Sachs charged Plato with committing a fallacy of irrelevancy. Plato’s Socrates is asked to show that justice understood as acting in conformity with conventional morality, so-called vulgar justice, is beneficial to the just person. Socrates actually demonstrates something else, namely that psychic justice, a state of internal harmony between parts of the soul, is beneficial to its possessor. A generation of Plato scholarship has reacted to Sachs’ reading of the Republic by using discussions of moral psychology and education elsewhere in the dialogue to bridge the gap between psychic justice …

Aristotle On Civic Friendship, Robert Mayhew

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

Aristotle offers us no sustained account of civic friendship (πολιτική φιλία), only remarks scattered throughout the Nicomachean Ethics and Eudemian Ethics. In this paper I hope to make clear what his views on civic friendship are.

Citizens will feel affection for one another due to the mutual benefit they receive from living together in a city. They agree about what is advantageous for the city: who should rule, how the city should be run, etc.; and to the extent that they care about the common good, they all have one aim. In addition, the affection a citizen feels for his …